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Rangefinder Magazine
February 2001
Web Sight: Casio Wristcam
It’s All in the Wrist
by Marshal M. Rosenthal
Part of the fun of reviewing new technology is that you get to see a lot
of things that you otherwise wouldn’t; costly and high-tech products
that are often more fun to play with a few times than they are to own.
And in the process one can become a bit jaded, failing to recognize just
what has value versus not based solely on the level of the technology
and in fact the price as well.
All of which leads to the Casio WQV1D-8 Digital Wrist Camera. Now don’t
tune out because this isn’t some $15,000 jobber—and granted,
it’s not a high rez digital camera by any means (28,000 pixels in
all); in fact its 1 MB of internal memory is only able to handle about
100 pictures before running out of space. Since the resolution is only
120 x 120 and 4000 dots (compacted into a 16-grayscale monochrome image),
any image “downloaded” into it from a PC had better be formatted
for the minimal resolution. And of course the digital camera that’s
built in (while quite a feat of micro-imaging engineering with its 1/11
to 1/1660 second electronic shutter and automatic metering system) doesn’t
provide for better than postage-sized imaging, so the images are really
more for documentation, rather than high fidelity imaging.
Now Andrew Ziegler, Casio’s Product Development manager, agrees with
this, but he points out that the basis for the Wrist Camera’s development
was ease of portability and a fun and convenient way for capturing digital
images. “Sure it’s for fun but there are even practical uses,”
he says, “such as documenting friends and business associates faces/contact
info, photographing and displaying family members, pets—even taking
a quick shot of a parking space number to jog the memory later.”
He could also add that you get a fully digital timepiece with 5 alarms,
a timer, stopwatch and even a built-in database.
There are quite a lot of features jammed into this small space -- such
as being able to add text to an image and upload it as a JPEG or BMP formatted
graphic file to a PC or Mac via an infrared (IR) adapter unit (the PC
link kit is optional). It’s all pretty impressive. But certainly
we’re not talking professional use -- until you stop and consider
that the Wrist Camera is totally focused in on having the ability to carry
around images on your wrist. And which allows for images to be easily
“flashed” in front of someone at a moment’s notice.
So consider this: Photographers spend a lot of time getting the word out
about their services—and self-promotion is just part of the daily
grind of being in this profession where anyone with a camera (and now
digital camera) is a “pro” until proven otherwise. The “clever”
photographer is the one who sees an opportunity where others don’t—and
that’s exactly what this watch offers. Some of what comes to mind
here are:
• A professional photographer could carry images of famous clients
or events as a documentary reference on his/her wrist to conveniently
display to potential clients (easier to point your wrist at a person than
sticking a portfolio in his/her face).
• A wedding photographer could use the Wrist Camera to capture funny,
intimate, or familial moments at a Wedding, “off the cuff” as
it were (ouch on that pun)—then transfer the images via IR to other
duplicate wrist cameras which could then be given as gifts to the guests
of the bride and groom, with pre-loaded images of the wedding event.
• Baby photos often are incorporated into visual montages, depicting
the bride and groom as children. These images could be scanned into a
PC, and downloaded onto the Wrist Camera via the IR adapter. The Wrist
Camera could then be given as a gift, and act as a digital photo library
of the wedding couple!
• Since there is the ability to swap images between two digital Wrist
Camera users, attendees of weddings, conferences, and parties could digitally
capture images, and exchange them with other wearers of digital wrist
cameras, instantaneously (6 second IR transfer between watches). Other
uses are only limited by one’s imagination.
• What it all comes down to is that photographers need to remember
that being creative comes from within and isn’t based on the latest
or most expensive piece of technology that’s come along. And there’s
nothing wrong with having a bit of fun while you’re at it either!
Marshal M. Rosenthal is a photojournalist based in Los Angeles, and a
frequent contributor to many imaging and com-puter publica-tions. He can
be reached at marshalr@pipeline.com/.
Company information:
Casio
570 Mt. Pleasant Ave.
Dover, NJ 07801
(973) 361-5400
www.casio.com (select Watches/Wrist Technology Collection)
Digital Wrist Camera, standard black band: $199
Silver band: $229
PC link kit: $50
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